We teach our marines to kill and then wonder why they can't do it humanely. Taking another person's life is a difficult task. We need a reason to kill someone; a good one. Marines are told who the enemy is and ordered to kill them. The rationale for killing follows soon thereafter, for without rationale, killing becomes a difficult chore.
The easiest way to develop rationale is to place yourself above your enemy. I am better than he is; therefore, he deserves to die. In all military conflicts, the combatants demean their opponents, use derogatory remarks to describe them, and mock cultural distinctions. In other words, make them subhuman. Killing a subhuman is a lot easier than killing a person with few discernible differences from ourselves. In every military conflict in which the United States has engaged, the enemy was assigned unique disparaging labels to dehumanize them, thus making them easier to kill.
The concept of enemy is amplified because military units become small worlds in which everyone in that world shares the same view of the enemy as everyone else. A closed society provides validation for debasing the enemy. Since everyone is in accord, this mindset becomes the new norm. For this reason, fraternizing with the enemy is discouraged. If the enemy takes on human characteristics, then killing him becomes a psychological burden. In that isolated world, urinating on the corpse of your enemy is normal. If killing them can be justified, then pissing on their corpses can also be justified. This behavior becomes abnormal only when viewed by outsiders.
Police officers in large cities go through a similar rationalization process. A neighborhood or a group of people become the enemy. Police officers prepare themselves to kill aggressors by setting up an "us against them" mentality, with the "us" taking a superior role. Police officers often demean "the enemy" using terminology such as: knucklehead, dirt bag, scum sucker, etc. In this world, it is no surprise when police officers occasionally abuse the people they took an oath to protect. The primary difference between the police world and the world of the Marine Corps is that police officers return home every day to family and friends, which provides a balance between their professional and personal lives. Marines, on the other hand, return to isolated living quarters in a war zone and along with fellow marines propagate and reinforce their negative view of the enemy. The new norm is constantly being reinforced and validated.
This phenomenon is not exclusive to marines and police officers; it occurs in offices every day across the country. A coworker we don't like becomes the enemy. We seek out others who think the same way as we do. We use demeaning terms to describe the enemy. We relegate them to a lower status. We are more competent, skillful, and intelligent than they are. We cut off all contact with the enemy, to prevent him or her from becoming more human, more like us. Under these conditions, it becomes easier to stab coworkers in the back, sabotage their work, and form alliances to destroy their reputation or get them fired. In other words, we piss on them.
Good leadership is the solution. The four marines would not have desecrated the corpses of their enemies if they had good leadership. With good leadership police officers would not abuse the citizens they swore to protect. Good leadership creates a professional environment wherein poor treatment of coworkers is not tolerated. Good leadership takes courage. We must all find the courage to stop people from pissing on each other in a world where pissing on each other is the new norm.
